


Until Tomorrow

by BandaBecca



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 07:28:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14015265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BandaBecca/pseuds/BandaBecca
Summary: The Inquisitor returns to Skyhold having sustained an injury too urgent to tend on the road with limited supplies. Her arrival has frightened the Commander who hasn't yet admitted his feelings to her...





	Until Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> I pictured it as Quizzie Olivier (oh-LIV-ee-ay), but I realise now I never used her name, so picture your OC if you want!
> 
> My bandabecca Tumblr has more if you like it.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it! <3

I didn’t jump when I heard the horns, but I couldn’t have been more relieved to be woken by them. I was sitting with Dorian on the horse he had ‘borrowed’ from the requisitions officer, ropes criss-crossed over my chest and around my shoulders holding my back against him. The wound still stung like a bee sting, though far more deeply and intensely, and I had stopped cringing at every hoofbeat miles ago. I hadn’t been able to hold onto consciousness for longer than a few minutes at a time since we’d left the camp, and knowing we were so close, I sagged against the restraints.

‘Don’t give up yet, we’re almost there,’ Dorian whispered, arm tightening around me.

The pain spiked as he slowed to a rough trot and the hoofbeats changed as they struck stone.

I couldn’t keep my eyes open, but when I heard the gasps and shouts, I still found it in me to want to hide my state from everyone—maintain the Herald façade, don't let them think that everything’s not all right.

Dorian pulled the horse up short, and I leaned away from his voice, too-loud in my ear. ‘You there! Find Millesandre and send her to the Inquisitor’s quarter’s immediately!’ 

The other voices streamed in steadily from the crowd around us that I could hear but not see.

‘Sweet Maker, look at all that blood.’

‘Shouldn’t Andraste have protected her?’

‘Millesandre’s the best healer in Thedas, she’ll fix her, lad, don’t worry.’

‘Though all before me is shadow, yet shall the Maker be my guide…’

A hand on my thigh, a voice cutting above the others. ‘What happened?’ I leaned toward his voice. How long had I been holding on to thoughts of the warmth of his mantle to hold on one mile more?

The ropes vanished, but Dorian hesitated, holding me tighter. ‘She’s…she’s very weak...’

Cullen’s voice was tight, ‘I can see that, let me help you get her down!’

Hands pulled and tugged, the twisting of my torso setting my wound aflame until I was held against a hard body. I could smell him. I knew he was there, and I tried, I tried so hard to open my eyes, to say his name, but my tongue disobeyed me, making mumbles and moans.

‘I’ve got you.’ Just a whisper near my ear. ‘Please hold on, I—’ 

Blackness.

 

‘Hand me the Prophet’s Laurel,’ a voice said over my left shoulder. I’d been sent to Millesandre enough times to recognise her curt tone.

Her assistant Sophia answered. ‘Are you sure? What if—’

‘There’s nothing else that will work against the poison.’ There was a pause, and she continued slightly hushed. ‘Get them out of here and bar the door. They’ll try to come back in when I apply the poultice.’

The sound of fabric rubbing fabric, then over my right shoulder: ‘We need the room.’

‘I’d rather stay,’ Cullen said.

‘She’d want me here,’ Dorian said.

‘We need privacy—’ 

‘It’s not as if I’m even interested in women!’ He was using that tone right before things usually started catching fire.

‘That’s not—that’s not why you must—’

‘Sophia!’ Millesandre’s voice bit sharply, too close to my ear.

She began again, words rushed. ‘We cannot proceed until you leave the room. Every second you stay delays her treatment.’

Shuffling feet. Mumbling curse words in Tevine. Cullen’s voice. ‘Tell us immediately if there’s any change or anything we can do.’

The bolt slid closed with a deep thud which echoed in the chamber. There was the sticky sloshing of a mixed poultice as Sophie’s scent of lavender settled next to me again.

‘Are you ready, Sophie?’

Hands closed over my wrists tightly, pinning me to the bed. The voice was so close that the breath brushed my eyebrows. ‘All right.’

Millesandre tore open my tunic further, and the sound felt tight and close. The panic began to close in as I fought to surface into consciousness. 

The poultice was cold, but only at first. In seconds, the feeling shifted to heat and electricity as if a rage demon and a pride demon both had their claws dug into my abdomen, grabbing and twisting what they found inside. 

My screams echoed off the walls and within my own head.

 

A cool cloth wiped at my forehead and around my neck, brushing my hair back, the figure sniffing lightly as if trying to hide the sound. It was Josie’s voice at the foot of the bed who said, ‘When will we know?’

Cullen’s voice next to her, ‘Millesandre said that it could take several days before anything happens.’

Cole’s voice, far away, ‘She might never wake up.’

I could see the snarl in my mind. ‘She didn’t say that!’

‘Because she knew what you’d do if she had.’

The hand stilled on my cheek. ‘If you…’ even as close as the voice was, I could barely hear even if I could see the lips moving under the twisted moustache in my mind's eye. ‘If you don’t wake up, how will I tell you how stupid you are for doing what you did?’

 

Snow fell around Haven, but the sun was shining. Harritt’s hammer was steadily making weapons worthy of our army while pilgrims and soldiers alike bustled about.

‘Lethallan?’

I turned, Solas’s eyebrows meeting over troubled eyes. I didn’t speak, my brain working too slowly to piece together what I was seeing, but still recognising I was looking at a puzzle. I took a steady and slow breath. ‘Why…did you bring me back here?’

His expression twitched but didn’t clear. ‘You remember me bringing you to the Fade before?’

‘You told me about how you studied the mark. How you couldn’t close the Breach and were prepared to run away.’

The air rushed out of him as he captured me into a hug. I didn’t have time to react before he pulled away, but even so, the action felt so out of character for him, that I knew there was more than I was missing.

‘I’ve been trying to reach you countless times, but you were always just beyond the boundaries of the Fade. I was beginning to…it doesn’t matter now. I have to tell the others. How do you feel? Are you in pain?’

I didn’t think so at first, but as I spread my awareness through, a slow, building ache was beginning in my abdomen. I placed a hand over the feeling. ‘What's happening? Why were you looking for me here?’

His face flashed confusion for a moment. ‘You don’t remember?’

I shook my head, losing patience.

‘You were injured. You’re in your quarters now healing with no signs of waking. I thought to come and meet you here, make sure you were still with us. I thought I might try and ease you back through the Veil.’

The ache was still growing. ‘I don’t know that I want to,’ I smiled lightly. ‘I don’t want to know what this is going to feel like without sleep dulling it.’

He moved toward a bench near the tavern, and I followed. ‘Perhaps, but I don’t think Dorian can go another day without you before he snaps at someone and lights them on fire.’ 

I sat next to him on the bench, and he turned his body towards mine. ‘If you’re ready, there’s no time to waste.’

I looked around one last time before nodding, nervousness settling in my chest.

He shifted his position on the bench slightly. ‘Close your eyes and relax.’

I did so, mind shifting to how upset Dorian must be, to how badly I wanted to see Cullen. The others must be worried too, Varric, Cassandra, and the others. The feeling settled over me that I had missed them, even if I didn’t know where exactly I had been before Solas found me or how long. I opened my eyes suddenly, grabbing his wrist. ‘Gently please. I don’t want to sit up gasping like last time.’

He smiled. ‘I’ll do my best.’

I closed my eyes once again, holding onto the pain to anchor me to the real world.

 

And it was the pain I felt before I sensed anything else. But slowly I realised other things: the room was too hot, it was silent, and I was wildly thirsty.

I opened my eyes slowly. It was night, candles and torches were illuminating the room in patches, two areas most concentrated in light. On the settee near the steps, Dorian was reclined, book in hand, facial hair unkempt over clothes that were too wrinkled for them to have been changed in a while.

On the other side, Cullen was sitting at my desk, reports around him in a set up identical to the desk in his own office. He had two fingers resting on his temple, and I knew that meant a headache was brewing underneath. His face was tight as if angry. He sighed hard and pushed the report away from him, eyes shooting to mine quickly before moving back to the desk. I could see in his face when he realised my eyes had been open. He stood so quickly that the chair fell backwards behind him, rushing to the bed.

‘Thank the Maker. Dorian, she’s awake!’ He took my hand and the bed dipped under Dorian’s weight on the other side. 

I looked over to Dorian, seeing him more clearly under the light of the candle at the bedside table. His eyes were dull and sagging, and his hair was unwashed. The simple un-Dorianess of it filled me with guilt. I reached up to his face, running my thumb along the stubble on his chin. ‘You look awful,’ I said with a smile.

‘That’s nonsense. I’m simply trying out a rugged look. Like our Commander.’

‘Or like Blackwall.’

He turned up his nose. ‘Perish the thought.’

I tried to smile, but I was more confused at the banter than anything. I glanced to Cullen, eyes still locked on mine. ‘How long was I asleep?’

‘Four days,’ Dorian replied before Cullen could. ‘And I’ll thank you not to scare me like that again.’

‘I shall try my upmost not to replicate this situation. I find it quite disagreeable.’ I placed a hand over my stomach, leaning my head up to look down at my body. ‘I need to ask Millesandre if I can take some Elfroot. The pain is…intense.’

Dorian stood. ‘I’ll fetch you some. And maybe get a change of clothes while I’m at it.’ He strode out, chin up.

‘That’s the perkiest I’ve seen him since you returned from the Approach.’

I turned to Cullen who looked no more well-kempt than Dorian. ‘Solas said he was about ready to burn the place down.’

‘Solas?’

The memory still had the wisps of a dream around it. ‘He found me in the Fade. Pulled me back to this side of the Veil.’

He stared off a bit into the distance, his thoughts seeming far away.

I squeezed his hand, still resting on mine. ‘You haven’t been sleeping.’

A shadow fell over his eyes. ‘No.’

‘But now you must promise me that you will.’

He didn’t respond, just looked down to our hands. I was trying to play it off as natural touch, but it was more touching than we’d ever done. I felt that it was becoming harder to pretend that it was the touch of a worried friend with each passing moment. 

His gaze focused on my eyes again. ‘Dorian told me what you did.’ I nodded slowly. ‘You have to be more careful.’

‘I wasn’t being careless.’

‘You’re the Inquisitor, you can’t jump in front of demons mid-swing,’ his eyes were harsh.

‘I can if the swing is directed at my best friend.’

‘Dorian said that he wishes you hadn’t done it. Does that change nothing?’

‘You weren’t there, you didn’t see it. I am certain that if I hadn’t done what I did, he would be dead. I’m only injured.’ I pulled my hand out of his. ‘If you can’t understand what I did, then maybe I’m not who you thought I was. Maybe you’re not who I thought you were either.’ I was angry when I said the words, but even as they came out, the pain bloomed out from my chest and a desperate hope that I was wrong. 

I wanted him to stay with me.

He stood and took a few steps away from the bed, rubbing his forehead. In a moment, he dropped his arms to his sides and turned back, sitting closer than before, his face open and desperate, the expression more bare than I’d ever seen him.

‘I do understand. I just…Seeing you when you rode in with Dorian, all that blood…watching you lay here for days, in pain even when you were sleeping. You didn’t see any of that. I—everyone has been in and out. I think Cole might still be in the rafters somewhere. I thought…after that first day and there was no sign of you ever waking up…’ He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. It was a moment before he said, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have doubted your judgement,’ he said into his hand.

I reached for his fingers, pulling his hand away from his face. ‘I’m sorry you had to go through all of that.’ My heart sped up. ‘I feel guilty for making you stay here, but…it means a lot to me that you did.’ His eyes widened slightly. ‘Seeing you when I woke, it made me…really happy.’ I ran a hand through his hair, doubt lingering that he might pull away. ‘It’s that same feeling that makes it hard to see you so obviously worn down.’

‘My wellbeing should be the least of your worries right now,’ he said blushing.

‘But it isn’t.’

He leaned over me, the shadow from the candles pulling me into its embrace. ‘I—I’ve been wanting to tell you—I shouldn’t have waited until you had a brush with death to say anything, and I’m sorry about that. B-but I care f—’

The door below creaked open slowly, and he stood, ever the Commander. Millesandre and Sohpie came in, carrying a box of various bottles and potions. Millesandre looked stern as always, but Sohpie was beaming.

‘Dorian told us you were awake and asking for Elfroot?’ she said, hand going immediately to my forehead. ‘Slight fever, but within an acceptable range,’ she said to Millesandre. 

Millesandre began quizzing Sophie on possible poultices to suit best, and I turned to Cullen, saying quietly over the clink of the bottles, ‘Please, get some rest now. I’ll see you in the morning, and we can talk about this then.’ I smiled. ‘And I have quite a few things to say on the matter.’ I took his hand, rubbing my thumb across his palm, hoping my gaze was telling him enough about the promise of tomorrow’s conversation.

He didn’t move to leave, and I didn’t release his hand. It was a whisper of a moment, but in a sudden, smooth movement, his hand was on my cheek, and his lips were on mine. I leaned into the kiss, but in the next moment, he pulled away. ‘Until tomorrow then.’

The room was eerily silent as he strode down the stairs and out the door. My hand went to my lips, my fingers hovering over the tingle there.

I turned my head to the two other women. Millesandre was still staring toward where Cullen had just left, and Sophia’s eyes were on mine, eyebrows practically in her hairline. ‘P-please don’t tell anyone about this,’ I said breathlessly to them.

Millesandre didn’t miss a beat as she pulled down the bed sheets to change my bandages. ‘That means you, Sophia.’


End file.
